For years, Pat and Jack Ranson, of Wichita, have been well-known leaders in the Kansas Republican Party.

Jack Ranson is a former state GOP chairman and former national committeeman.

Pat Ranson is the current vice chair of the party and a former state senator.

So when the two ran in the Republican Party primary in August for committeeman and committeewoman of their local precinct — and lost — the outcome reflected a statewide shift in the Kansas Republican Party.

“We don’t go to the right church,” Pat Ranson said, explaining their defeat. “That’s the idiocy out there.”

Most party officials say so-called social conservative Republicans have seized control of the state GOP from so-called moderate Republicans.

In general terms, moderate Republicans support a woman’s right to an abortion and have in the past few years supported tax increases for public schools. Conservative Republicans generally oppose a woman’s right to an abortion and have opposed nearly all proposed tax increases.

In the past year, the issue of same-sex marriage also has divided the two wings. Moderates tend to take the position that the current state law banning same-sex marriage is adequate while conservatives want a state constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.

The takeover of the GOP by conservatives happened in races that are pretty much off the radar screens of most Kansans — the election of candidates to lead precinct committees.

The precinct positions are the foundation of the Republican Party, the dominant party in Kansas.

“You’ll get a new chairman, new party leadership, new staff and new direction,” said Republican Party executive director Scott Poor, who considers himself on the way out.

There are 3,700 precincts in Kansas spread across the four congressional districts.

Before the primary, only the 4th District, which includes Wichita, was in the hands of conservatives. There is no exact tally of conservatives versus moderates after the primary, but most party officials say it is likely Districts 2, 3, and 4 are now in conservative hands, and possibly District 1. Lawrence straddles districts 2 and 3 and unlike the trend in the rest of the state, the majority of its precincts stayed firmly in moderate control, according to Chris Miller, chairman of the Douglas County Republican Party.

Officials say Dwight Sutherland, a Johnson County conservative, has emerged as a possible candidate to be the next state GOP chairman.

Winnowing process

The newly elected precinct leaders will meet after the Nov. 2 general election in each county and elect delegates to the congressional district conventions, which will be held in late December or early January. Delegates from the congressional district meetings will elect representatives to the state committee. On Jan. 29, 2005, the state committee elects the chairperson, vice chair, secretary and treasurer of the party.

The result will frame Republican Party politics for another two years.

Conservative Republican leader David Miller of Eudora said which wing is in charge of the party apparatus “does make a difference.”

Miller is a former state party chairman who led the last conservative majority in 1998. As GOP chairman, he mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge to incumbent Gov. Bill Graves, a moderate Republican.

Miller says the importance of who the precinct leaders are is that they will elect people to fill vacancies should they occur in Republican-held legislative seats.

“Another thing is the candidate recruitment that goes on,” Miller said. “Ordinarily, party leaders should stay out of primaries, but it often falls to party leaders to find people to run for office, so they are more likely to recruit people they feel are core Republicans,” he said.

Miller said the philosophy of the state party leaders would also determine the stripe of the delegates sent to the national convention, which could have an effect on the national party’s platform.

Big win for Brownback

Burdett Loomis, chairman of the political science department at Kansas University, said the results of the precinct elections meant that conservatives would “control the mechanism and label of the party.”

“In many ways, the label is more important because they are defining what it means to be a Republican,” Loomis said.

He said the biggest winner in the GOP precinct elections was U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, the leader of conservative Republicans in Kansas.

“This is a huge step for Sam Brownback to consolidate control of the political party,” Loomis said. Brownback’s office did not return a response to questions about his involvement in the precinct races.

Many have speculated that Brownback wants to position himself for higher office, perhaps a White House run.

Conservatives also will be in charge of mounting the Republican opposition in 2006 against Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat. But Loomis said that could always backfire because Sebelius enjoyed support from some moderate Republicans.

Loomis said the tug-of-war for control of the Republican Party was coming to a head.

“We are in the midst of a battle to define the meaning of being a Republican in this state. A lot of politics that has been going on in the last 10 or 15 years are going to crystallize in the next several months,” he said.

Religious wars

In her precinct race, Pat Ranson said postcards were mailed out that said she and her husband weren’t true Republicans.

She said religious affiliation was a factor in the contest. Catholics and evangelical Christians voted against them. She belongs to a mainstream Christian church, she said.

Also, Pat Ranson said, despite she and her husband’s longtime leadership in the Republican Party, the fact that they had lived in the precinct for only a couple of years probably hurt their chances.

But she predicted the conservative reign of the Republican Party would be short-lived because voters will become dissatisfied with the religious right.

“When the Democrats produce more good candidates, more and more of the general public and moderate Republicans and certainly unaffiliated people are going to say, ‘I’m getting tired of these holier than thou people’ and they will start voting for Democrats,” Pat Ranson said.

But John Altevogt, a conservative activist from Wyandotte County, disagreed.

“I don’t think we’ll do any worse than moderates like Ranson who make bigoted ‘holier then thou’ statements about the people of faith who are the bedrock of the party,” he said.